Doctor Of ‘Humble Beginnings’ Hopes To Inspire Young People In Louisiana
Media outlets report on a Black security guard turned doctor at Baton Rouge General Medical Center, a Rhode Island physician helping patients figure out voting and other stories about medical professionals.
GMA:
Former Security Guard Now A Medical Student At The Hospital Where He Worked
One Black doctor is working on the front lines during the coronavirus pandemic as a medical student at the same facility where he once worked as a security guard. Dr. Russell Ledet, who worked security at Baton Rouge General Medical Center for about five years, said that he would study medicine on note cards and ask doctors that passed by if he could shadow them. (Moseley, 8/17)
Boston Globe:
A Rhode Island Doctor Is Helping Patients Vote From Their Hospital Beds
[Kelly] Wong’s initiative is just one of a growing number of efforts by medical professionals and institutions to deliver essential health care and timely access to the ballot box. ...Wong founded Patient Voting in 2018, but she expects it will serve even more people during this year’s presidential election, including those hospitalized with the coronavirus. (Fitzpatrick, 8/14)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Greendale Grad, Northwestern Physician Helping With COVID-19 Vaccine
A Greendale High School alumna is helping to launch a COVID-19 registry for people interested in partaking in COVID019 clinical trials for potential vaccines. Karen Krueger, who works as a physician for Northwestern Medicine and an instructor in infectious diseases at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, has been leading efforts to find participants in the Chicago area most at risk for COVID-19 exposure and who are interested in participating in different studies for preventing infection. It's part of the COVID Prevention Trials Network established by the National Institutes of Health, and the research is being sponsored by the Feinberg School of Medicine. (Johnson, 8/14)
Also —
San Francisco Chronicle:
Here’s What Made A Bay Area Medical Examiner Move Her Family From SF To New Zealand
Dr. Judy Melinek was fed up. As the acting chief forensic pathologist for Alameda County and a vocal critic of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic, the San Francisco resident had reached her breaking point in June. She left the Oakland morgue for a meeting with a county lab official to find out why it took 48 hours to get coronavirus test results instead of the eight hours she was promised, Melinek recalled. The machine had capacity for 96 samples, she said she was told, but before running a test they had to wait to fill up all the wells with samples from all over the county, and by the time the cycle was completed all the workers were already home for the day. (Gafni, 8/15)
The New York Times:
We Didn’t See Our Kids For 109 Days
In March, when it became clear that New York City would become a Covid-19 hot spot, Elaine Yang and David Weir panicked over how to take care of their daughters: Ainsley, 3, and Adeline, 1. Yang, 39, is an anesthesiologist at the Hospital for Special Surgery with a specialty in critical care medicine, and Weir, 49, is a critical care medicine pulmonologist at New York–Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical Center. They did not want their nanny, who is over 50, to risk her health traveling across New York City each day, so they paid her to stay home. (Jenkins, 8/14)
In obituaries —
The New York Times:
Charles Wetli, Coroner For T.W.A. Flight 800 Crash, Dies At 76
Charles V. Wetli, the Long Island medical examiner who was thrust into the national spotlight when the Trans World Airlines Flight 800 exploded in 1996 and killed all 230 people on board, died on July 28 at a hospital in Manhattan. He was 76. His daughter, Kavita Dolan, said the cause was complications of lung cancer. (Seelye, 8/16)
